Descend
by Freyjaonline
Summary: In which one must fall... A huge thanks to my beta Kesla for making me a better writer.


I hated that everything I ask for passes through her hands.

I hate that more than the fact that everything I own is purchased with Cerberus funds.

I hated that everything I do and don't do is weighed on a scale that must be labeled, "Shepard Pre-Death and Shepard After Death," that **EVERYTHING** ends up on a report in his hands.

I am sick of the sidelong looks, the unasked questions; the roundabout "_evaluations_" as to whether they'd brought "_me_" back.

Everything they know about me **IS** information that they've stolen or bought, from anyone willing to line their palms with a credit chit.

This one request, this one purchase has her tapping a hasty staccato down to the cargo hold to disturb what bit of peace I can find.

She stands there, arms crossed, hip cocked, staring.

The words in my head match my pace, heartbeat and the sound of my own breath: Should Be Dead. Should Be Dead.

She speaks.

No she demands.

"Fifty Yards, Commander? Fifty! Do you care to explain to me why you need fifty yards of Asari silk or when we'll have time to pick it up?"

I don't slow my pace or even look at her; "If you want me to keep playing fetch for Cerberus then I'm sure you'll find a way."

I pick up my pace as she stands silent and staring.

In the end it is she who retreats, leaving me to the litany in my head.

I run until my shaking legs barely support my weight to the lift, and I drag myself into bed.

* * *

I am aware that this ship surpasses the original - leather seats, the larger cabin and the cook; who also cleans the toilets.

I only see the coffin that bore me away.

Bright pinpricks tinted blue by wavering emissions.

Now fuzzy, haloed comets.

The aquarium casts an illusion of movement, of life, around the room while the filter bubbles.

Air-oxygen hissing.

My life - bleeding out into empty space.

Dark, weightless, burning...

Lungs burn, air... need air

The sounds of screams jerk me from sleep, the heavy pistol a familiar comfort in my palm.

It takes me several seconds to realize they are mine.

I heave great gulps of air, the pistol wavers as my arm trembles.

The hair at my nape, slicked with sweat, sticks to my skin.

"I was told to bring you back, just as you were then, and I do not fail."

I drag myself to the couch.

It's the only damn place I can fall asleep in this room.

"You've failed, Lawson. Someone should have told you I sleep on my fucking back."

* * *

There's a stipulation to my request one that pushes her over.

When she looks at me now, her lower lip thrusts out as she runs her tongue over her teeth.

It's her tell.

It means I have made her just as uncomfortable in her own skin as I am now in mine.

She doesn't realize she does it, and every time I see it, I'm pleased.

She stalls for a day, then two and two days eventually becomes a week.

He's contacting her more and more which forces her down to the cargo hold.

My soles, heart and breath during my runs no longer drum of my insecurities and fears but of her own and her master's.

He's pissed with her and even the dumbest marine know that shit rolls downhill, so her anger trickles down to me.

My last mission is not one of her master's hand but one of penance: for me, my former crew members, and ship.

I am granted absolution in the form of twenty pitted, dull and scarred pieces of metal.

A measure of peace when I locate Navigator Pressley's data pad, damaged yet functioning despite two long years.

It tells of his initial dissent with my choice of crew members giving away to understanding, respect and then finally acceptance.

My mind is quick to supply memories; the faces of those who've died.

I stumble upon a gruesome reminder of my own fall.

My helmet.

A splash of blood against the white snow of the planet, areas of the paint still bright, some scorch marks, everything but the S of my last name is burnt away.

Joker's voice is quiet in my ear; "It's been six hours Shepard, time to come …" the words die in his throat.

He would have said home, I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

I agree it's not home, I was never afraid of Her before.

The feel of us dropping out of FTL never frightened me.

The sudden shift of balance as Joker guides her into a relay never halted my breath before.

I realize that that fear is not as irrational as I wish to believe.

Our attackers stole something from me.

Something valuable.

I _want_ it back.

I _need_ it back.

Days later I receive a message from Admiral Hackett and a package from Thessia.

It didn't require a struggle of wills, a clash of angry words nor any of the skills I learned and honed before they rebuilt me.

It only took me standing still to have my request granted.

On my visit to the Citadel, the security officer is more uncomfortable about my status then I before directing me to Captain Bailey.

I receive looks of disbelief and even scorn as I stand before the Council.

I bear it and when the council reinstates my Spectre status I feel that I have regained another piece of myself.

There is nothing that can explain the feeling of being able to pick up supplies without having to go through her.

I purchase provisions to provide better meals, a bottle of Chakwas' favorite brandy, and dextro based provisions to the Operative's disappointment.

For myself I purchase a space hamster, several fish, a couple of books and some other equipment that takes a lot of digging to acquire.

All these things are delivered to my cabin; now darker thanks to the silk that graces the ceiling, dimming the brightness of those who'd watched me fall.

It ripples and wavers above the bed but it is an illusion granted by the aquarium.

So few use the gym when I do but then who would.

Who would walk the halls of this ship so late knowing that they watch their every step, only to watch mines?

She doesn't question the delivery of ropes, carabineers, and other things that are no longer used due to technology.

Nothing is said about the noises that echo from the cargo bay.

She is even silent when EDI mentions the "breaches" in the cargo hold.

She leaves me to my own devices; only because we are moving forward again.

A week later from the upper reaches of the ceiling I watch as fabric drapes to the ground.

It is time.

I will learn to fly again without fear.

* * *

There is nothing, nothing I can say as I watch unsure of what she's doing.

I have always watched her.

At first it was an order from Anderson and now, is this an obsession; is it love?

I don't know but I've watched her since before her resurrection and I watch her now.

Long, lean muscles pull her up into the darkness of the ceiling.

Her hands are hesitant as they wrap fabric around her waist.

Her legs and feet curl the fabric taut across limbs corded with muscle.

I hold my breath but in the end have to use my hand to muffle curses, as I watched her lean back and drop several feet, her eyes wide with fear.

Her mouth opens in a scream I cannot and don't want to hear as she falls.

Alone.

In the dark.

Again.

Yet, she starts again.

With trembling hands she pulls herself back up to fall over and over again.

I relax as I watch her become more confident.

The fear leaves her eyes, her mouth curls as she finally smiles.

A week passes.

She's regained some of her confidence.

Her falls involves less fabric.

Fewer limbs.

A drop of five feet held only by the bend of her knee, another by a loop of fabric strangling her ankle.

Another by a hammock of fabric wrapped around her shoulder, her fingers gliding over the fabric as she falls.

I can smile with her now.

If she could bear reliving herself falling over and over again, I'd bear it with her.

She visits me in the cock pit.

Her eyes go to the stars streaking over us, no longer stricken and that familiar smile on her lips again.

She asks me about the old crew.

Her eyes become sad with each name.

When one isn't accounted for they become stricken.

We've "collected" several people, "using the term loosely" from the dossiers.

She's even grabbed Doctor Solis from Omega yet she always hesitates when the name Archangel is mentioned.

I've asked her about it several times and she attempts to answer but the words always die on her lips.

Her eyes shift to the stars; haunted and unchecked her hand would flutter over her chest.

The choice is made for her.

Clicking heels echo down the walkway; punctuated by that clipped voice, "Stop hovering around that piece of shit and dock already.

Once more her eyes got to the stars and then she is gone.

When her team arrives at the airlock, her armor is different - detailed in a shade I haven't seen in some time.

She nods to me, there are no words needed, I know that she was ready.

She brings him back - broken and nearly dying with her heart in her eyes.

She doesn't need to tell Chakwas or the professor what to do or how important his survival is to her.

They handle it and when she visits the cockpit later; no sun can rival the light in her eyes.

She's found him and learned to fly without fear before rescuing him.

It is something she needed to do, she was afraid that the fear she felt would show in her eyes.

Yet he is haunted by things he can not or will not talk about.

She visits him often but is chased away by words said with feelings killed by things unsaid.

She continues to visit him but he is always too busy with his calibrations, calibrations, always his damn calibrations.

She leaves him to his thoughts.

He is as haunted as she'd once been.

Instead of being angry I watch as she flies.

* * *

She slips down to her refuge night after night dressed in more comfortable clothing now.

in the beginning she wore her under armor and now she wears a pair of boy cut shorts and a sleeveless shirt cropped beneath her breasts.

She is no longer hesitant as she climbs.

The muscles in her arms no longer strain.

The fabric is wrapped without thought as she spends her nights falling over and over again.

Thirty days, he thinks, it taken her four weeks to teach herself to fly.

The entire haptic display is filled with video from her first initial steps.

The first week she is hesitant.

Terror widens her eyes.

When she falls her mouth opens in silent screams as she fights the ghosts that haunt her.

The next week, she learns that she won't fall.

The third week, she beams with the success of knowing she can't fall.

His hand slides over her form the night before they retrieved the reticent male; wasp avoids her.

Speaking only when dogs his steps.

Tonight I watch as she reaches the darkened ceiling, cocooned in silk that is an exact match of the colors that decorate the one who avoids her.

Who remains out of her reach yet is so close.

When she finally falls from her nest - she rolls into a trio of flips then a spin by her left knee.

I try to follow her hands as they wrap the fabric in preparation for the next aerial and fail.

Her hands grip the fabric before she fall into a triple angel only seven feet from the unforgiving floor.

I smile as I watch the fall become a spin.

A thin swathe of fabric behind her neck is her only support.

She controls the speed of the spin with the shape of her body and the pull of her arms.

The spin slows before her body spirals down the remaining lengths of the fabric to the floor.

She walks away from the fluttering fabric then turns to run back to the fluttering lengths.

Sure hands scale the fabric carrying her to the top where she forms a cocoon and stays there.

An idea forms and I search the music files that are available on her omni tool.

I don't have to look long.

She has been listening to the same three tracks religiously for the entire month.

All are from the 20's: Evanescence's Going Under and Wake Me Up and Seether's Broken.

I edit the video and set her month long struggle to music.

Going Under chronicles the most difficult part of her struggle, Broken where she slowly regained her confidence and then Wake Me Up Inside is set to the vid of tonight.

The file is copied to an osd, the local copy buried in my own files before I places the AI at the helm and head down to the Main Battery.

* * *

"Shepard, you need me for something?" The male turns.

The pilot watches his face change before opening his hand to reveal the osd on his palm.

"I don't think you'd have appreciated me having the AI hack your visor."

Just as silently as the pilot has come he is gone.

The osd is inserted into his omni tool, the pilot's face appears:

"If she finds this, I'll deny it. If anyone else finds it, Dr. Chakwas won't even be able to save you."

The male nods as if the pilot could see him.

As he watches, he realizes that humans found their wings long before they decided to map the galaxies.

It hurts him to watch her struggle, but it fills his heart with something he thought he'd lost-hope.

He'd lost ten good people because of a coward, yet here she is finding her courage again.

There is no rest for her, she has to be strong.

She'd died and been brought back to once again save the galaxy.

No one asked her what she wanted or how she felt, they just assumed she was Shepard and would accomplish the mission.

They're assumptions are not misplaced.

She will succeed.

He leaves his calibrations taking the lift to her cabin.

It ripples with life.

The fish in the aquarium lend color and movement to the room, even the ceiling.

It takes less than a minute while his visor takes in information, processes it then relays to him that the stars are obscured by length upon length of silk.

She isn't here; this room keeps her things safe but not her, not in a long time and probably never will.

When he reaches the engineering deck there is someone else there, looking through the glass at the material that flutters with movement.

Operative Lawson stands there, her head resting against an upraised arm, "I didn't realize…" she starts then shakes her head as she walks away.

He leans against the glass watching her fall.

No, he shakes his head.

Not falling, flying.

Flying in the color that represents safety to her and has been for a month and now that that person was here she'd been shut out by him.

He leaves the observation window, taking the lift down to the cargo hold.

When he arrives she is scaling the length of silk heading back for the top.

He calls to her.

"Shepard?"

* * *

I continue my ascent, he's been reticent, withdrawn.

Sure, he performs on missions but there is none of the earlier banter, none of the awkwardness we'd shared before I…just before.

I have dreamed of him calling to me for so long and now was having auditory hallucinations.

The cloth is taut beneath my hand and I look down to see him.

His eyes dull, the fire they once held guttered and doused.

I've missed him - stumbling, eager filled with fire.

I am sure it is something that we've both lost but it is the memory of him that stoked and rekindled my fire.

When I'd reached him on Omega my heart burst, the fears that skulked up my spine were gone.

I'd willingly go to hell with him at my back, at my side. It didn't matter as long as he was with me.

During the battle; the name - Archangel, fit him.

Archangel, defender of the most high.

His Viper - his flaming sword and his countenance just as unfeeling as his namesake.

That is where the similarities end.

Archangels burn with the passion of the one they served, their hearts filled with it and his passion…is lost, gutted, destroyed?

I don't know, even as he looks up at me I just don't know.

I slide down the silk coming within several feet of him before I let go and use the trick I've seen the Justicar perform.

My biotics flare, defying gravity to allow me to slide into the circle of his arms as he hold the fabric.

When he catches me, I drop my forehead to his chest plate listening to the sound of his heart before meeting his eyes.

His mandibles flutter, eyes darting up to the silk that matches his eyes, his scorched armor and then to my eyes.

His mouth opens, closes and finally he murmurs my name again.

"Shepard?"

I met his eyes, "Trust me. Fly with me "

He nods his arms going around my neck.

My legs wrap around his waist as I lever us both to the top of the fabric.

I wrap him tightly in one length, then the both of us in the other.

When we fall, his arms tightened around my neck, holding me close to him, the fabric snaps as it unravels.

I'd left no end point to catch us.

There is nothing to stop our descent but his eyes never left mine.

* * *

Joker watches from the cockpit as they fall from the ceiling.

Rolling, flipping yet their eyes never leave one another's.

It takes him a minute to realize that she hasn't left enough material to catch them.

He panics and is almost out the chair when he sees it.

The entire screen flares biotic blue and there five feet from the floor, her eyes locked with the Turian and his on hers they hover.

He hits record.

He can not believe what he is seeing.

* * *

Resting comfortably in my arms, his eyes full of uneasy trust, he let's me catch him.

He trusts me to not drop him.

I put my heart in my eyes.

I hope that he knows what it means.

What he means to me.

I get us to the floor - his arm is loose around my neck and mines at his waist holding us to one another.

His eyes hold mine as my feet touch the cold floor, his eyes are made even bluer by the biotic flar.

The air smells of thunderstorms, spent eezo; a scent that is becoming increasingly familiar to me.

I take his hand and lead him to the cabin that I haven't slept in for a month.

I pile the pillows to make the bed comfortable for him before he pulls me into his hot plates, purring until I fall asleep.

* * *

He lies in bed holding the woman who'd rescued him three times now.

The first from CSec, the second on Omega and the third in the cargo bay.

He reaches up; activating his visor, the vid from Joker playing on the small screen.

It takes nearly two hours before she is sleeping deeply enough for him to leave.

He makes his way to the cockpit, standing at Joker's shoulder.

He is silent as he watchs his hands fly over the display.

There upon the screen behind Shepard, the new biotic, are wings.

Biotic blue, detailed with feathers whose tips spark with charged eezo.

He watches as wings dense with translucent feathers beat against still air lowering them to the floor.

The wings curve around them as if they are dense enough to shelter them from the prying cameras that litter this ship.

He turns on quiet feet and is nearly down the throat of the ship when Joker's voice reaches him.

"We lost her to the stars once. Are you willing to lose her again? Surely ghosts can't compare to an angel who fell for you."


End file.
